Judgment Day for Jesuits

Sandro Magister, "Last Call for the Society of Jesus – To Obedience" (www.chiesa, January 11, 2008) reports on the Jesuits election of their new superior general and discussion of the reasons for their decline. Vatican authorities have already said what they expect from the order: more obedience to the pope, and more fidelity to doctrine. In his homily for the Mass that opened the session on January 7, the non-Jesuit Cardinal Franc Rodé, prefect of the congregation for institutes of consecrated life, spoke bluntly. Here are excerpts:

It is with sorrow and anxiety that I see that the 'sentire cum ecclesia' of which your founder St Ignatius frequently spoke is diminishing in some members of religious families....

With sadness and anxiety I also see a growing distancing from the hierarchy. The Ignatian spirituality of apostolic service 'under the Roman Pontiff' does not allow for this separation....

The doctrinal diversity of those who at all levels, by vocation and mission are called to announce the Kingdom of truth and love, disorients the faithful and leads to a relativism without limits.

As Magistro observes, it is hardly a mystery that of the last seven theologians scrutinized by the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, four belong to the Jesuits: Jon Sobrino, Roger Haight, Jacques Dupuis, and Anthony De Mello. Let us pray, with St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Francis Xavier and St. Edmund Campion, for the salvation of the Society of Jesus.